The Manga Test Drive

The only thing harder than adapting a TV to manga form is adapting a TV show based on a light novel which is a prequel to another TV series, which itself is an adaptation of a visual novel to a manga.

FATE/ZERO (Feito/Zero), based on the novel by Gen Urobuchi and Type-Moon, adapted by Shinjiro. First published in 2010 and first published in North America in 2016.

PLOT:

Once every generation or so, a group of magically gifted organizations gather to wage war. They summon magical warriors torn from the pages of legend and history to fight against one another. The last one standing will win the Holy Grail and with it, the chance to have any single wish granted. As the fourth Grail War begins, a few new contenters appear. This includes a teenaged magic-user looking to prove himself, a murderous priest, and an assassin who hedges his bets with technology and guns.

STORY:

Do you like exposition? Do you like pages upon pages of people explaining complex rules to one another? Then Fate/Zero is for you! The Fate franchise has never wanted for rules and lore, and this prequel story is no exception to that. Yet for all the set-up, the most compelling parts of this story are also its most human.

Since this is both the beginning of the story and a prequel to Fate/Stay Night, we are obligated to sit through seemingly endless infodumps. After all, they have to explain all the rules about the Grail War, the Grail, the servants, the Noble Phantasms, and so forth for the newcomers, all while teasing important figures and events from the later story for fans. It's all necessary to some degree, but that doesn't make compelling reading. Let's just say I did a fair bit of skimming of this volume and leave it there.

It also doesn't help that there are so many grim-faced dudes here, each with their own dark motivations. Hell, technically we haven't met them all yet, yet I couldn't care less about any of them! There were only a couple of relationships that grabbed my attention, likely because they were the only ones that demonstrated anything that wasn't just angst and plotting.

The first was between Irisvael and her servant Saber. Strictly speaking, Saber is the servant of her husband Kiritsugu, but he's too busy plotting to bother much with her. It's also implied that he might be more than a little disappointed that he got a version of King Arthur that's a girl, but this might be me just reading too much into it. Still, this arrangement ends up working out much better for the both of them. Saber gets a master who is actually willing to guide her without judging her gender, while Irisvael gets a chance to see the world beyond her family's remote mansion and pursue her own dream.

The second is between Waver Velvet and his servant Rider. Waver should be annoying by any measure, as he's a teen boy who got involved in the Grail War entirely for the sake of his ego and spends most of his time freaking out over what his servant is doing now. Yet it's that pettiness that makes him the most relatable master we've seen thus far. It also helps that he has Alexander the Great as his servant, and when Iskandar isn't soaking in the joys of this new world he's subtly mentoring Waver into becoming a better man. This paternal dynamic is equal parts funny and endearing, and I only wish we could have gotten more moments like theirs. Had this version of Fate/Zero interwoven these flashes of humanity more evenly with the exposition, perhaps reading this would have been a little less tedious and a lot more enjoyable.

ART:

Shinjiro doesn't take much liberties with Fate/Zero's established look. The character designs are largely unaltered, which on the plus side means we get to see Saber in that sweet, elegant black suit. Alas, there's only so much he can do with all that talking, especially since he can't do things like 'have people walk around one another in a long, endless circle' to liven things up. The most he can do is use some low, dramatic angles to make people look more intimidating. Sadly, we don't get any actual fighting in this volume so I can't say at this point how he handles action scenes.

RATING:

Fate/Zero is at its best when it's exploring the relationships between its cast and not just laying out the rules. Still, this is a perfectly fine adaptation and a perfectly OK introduction to Fate at large.

This series is published by Dark Horse. This series is complete in Japan with 14 volumes. 5 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

August means that it's time for another Old-School Month, and today's review is both apt and nostalgic. It's a work from a newly minted Eisner Hall of Famer, beloved by many an older manga fan, and (no joke) was the first review I ever wrote.

RANMA 1/2 (Ranma Nibun no Ichi), by Rumiko Takahashi. First published in 1987 and first published in North America in 1993.

PLOT:

One day, Soun Tendo gathers his three daughters together: motherly Kasumi, boy/cash-crazy Nabiki, and hot-headed tomboy Akane. Soun's old friend Gendo Saotome is returning to Japan after many years with his son Ranma, and one of the girls must become Ranma's fiancee to ensure the survival of the Tendo School of Indiscriminate Grappling. Akane is the unlucky winner, but she thinks her luck has turned around when their family is greeted with not a man and his son, but instead a man-sized panda and a girl named Ranma.

After an accident in the bath, Akane learns the truth: Genma and Ranma have been transformed after falling into some specifically cursed springs while training in China. When Ranma and Akane aren't fighting with one another, they have to face off with the pompous kendo champion Kuno and Ranma's hopelessly directionless rival Ryoga.

STORY:

With Ranma 1/2, Takahashi took a lot of what worked with Urusei Yatsura and refined upon it even further. That means we get another romantic-comedy with a cast of dozens, a lot of gags, and a lot of fighting, but this time with martial arts!

I wish I could say that I cared for Takahashi's approach to romance. She's long been known for her belligerent brand of romantic tension, but for me she's always put too much emphasis on substituting fighting for flirtation. I'd argue it works less here than it did in Urusei Yatsura, which at least had the excuse of Ataru being a covetous, contrary lech. Here the fighitng-as-romance gets in the way of more than a few character-building moments for Akane. It's like everytime she gets a quiet moment to reflect upon herself or her situation, Ranma comes along and acts like a jackass, pissing her off and starting the fighting anew. It's a shame because I like Akane. While she is very much a tsundere, she gets enough nuance to make her appealing instead of irritating. Plus, between Ranma's antics, her dad's plans, and the horde of boys at school trying to win her over, she's got more cause than most tsunderes to be annoyed with the world.

Thankfully, she counters this with a lot of good humor and good action. The gags themselves aren't necessary great - I would dare say they are already starting to get a bit repetitious, even in this first volume - but the pace is brisk enough that none of them linger long enough to annoy. Plus, Rachel Thorn's translation (made under her old name) brings an additional level of wit and charm. Even then, there are already some stand-out moments, such as Kuno's increasingly bizarre romantic delusions or Ryoga getting lost for a week in an attempt to reach a sparring spot 500 yards away. None of it is complex, but it's all delivered in a confident style that has proven to stand the test of time.

ART:

The cast here is drawn in Takahashi's signature style: big-headed with short torsos, long legs, with great dark blobs of hair. While their similarities in style grow with the cast size, they're all still attractive and expressive as hell. With this series, Takahashi really starts to show off her knack for drawing action scenes. She takes a very clean, crisp approach to them, using a well-balanced combination of backgrounds, blank space, and general composition to convey motion without leaning upon speedlines and screen effects. It's an approach that later shonen mangaka like Hiromu Arakawa would take to heart and it's one that I absolutely love.

RATING:

Ranma 1/2 is looking only to deliver a wacky, action-packed good time and for the most part it delivers. While Takahashi would eventually exhaust these ideas in later volumes (to say nothing of later series), it's an extremely charming beginning.

This series is published by Viz. This series is complete with 36 volumes available. All 36 have been published and are currently in print and available digitally.

Today's review is not only a blast from manga's past, but also one that strives to recapture the style of older comics and pulpy sci-fi in one place.

STEAM DETECTIVES (Kaiketsu Joki Tanteiden), by Kia Asamiya. First published in 1994, and first published in 1999.

PLOT:

Somewhere between the past and present is Steam City, a fantastical city powered entirely by steam. The downside is that the constant clouds of steam allow all sorts of nefarious folks to roam the streets and evade the law. The only person who can stop their plans is Boy Detective Narutaki. With the help of Ling Ling the nurse, the sentient automaton Goriki, and his ever-present butler, Narutaki vows to clean up the streets of Steam City and find the answers to his own mysterious past.

STORY:

Steam Detectives is the sort of retro pastiche that's very hard to pull off well. It's easy enough to slap some steampunk on a detective serial with a few robots for extra flavor and hope that it all comes together, but it could have easily turned into the comic equivalent of those bootleg nerd mash-up t-shirts you see at every convention. Despite the odds, Asamiya makes it work by keeping things simple.

This style of story evokes both old-school shonen manga and the detective serials of the 40s. It reminds me a lot of the 90s Batman series (and considering Asamiya's open love of American comics, I'd be surprised if it wasn't an influence). He doesn't do anything particularly original or deep with the characters: Narutaki is determined and brave, Ling Ling is spunky and sweet, and the villains are bombastic, scenery-chomping hams. Yet it all works because Asamiya writes it with sincerity and keeps the pace lively. Thanks to that approach, Steam Detectives is just plain fun. After reading this, I can start to see why he was such a beloved figure back in the 90s.

ART:

I don't think Asamiya's art has ever looked better. His flat, stiff faces may not work on something like Star Wars, but it absolutely works on a broad, cartoony style that evokes the glory days of 1960s shonen manga. His composition here is dramatic and atmospheric, what with the retro style, the lush shadows, and constant, rolling clouds of steam. That being said, part of me wonders if he leaned on that steam to cover up the fact that he's not that great at drawing action. He comes up with great action pieces - gunfights on top of railcars, robot brawls, and tense stand-offs - but there's no sense of flow between the panels and no sense of motion in the art. It's the biggest thing holding this manga back from greatness.

RATING:

Steam Detectives has plenty of retro cool, but it can't quite overcome Asamiya's limitations as an artist. That being said, it's the most compelling work of his I've read thus far. If you're the sort of person who enjoyed works like Giant Robo or Metropolis, this might just get you steamed up with joy.

This series was published by Viz. This series is complete in Japan with 8 volumes available. All 8 have been published and are currently out of print.

Just because it's an old-school manga doesn't mean that it can't be derivative and muddled, as today's review demonstrates.

HYPER DOLLS (Rakusho! Hyperdoll), by Shinpei Itoh. First published in 1995 and first published in North America in 2002.

PLOT:

Everything starting going wrong after Hideo Akai wished on a shooting star. He didn't get a wish, but instead had his town invaded by bizarre alien monsters. He's saved by a pair of pretty lady warriors calling themselves the Hyper Dolls, but they swear him to secrecy or else they will rip his head off. Now the girls, Miyu and Miaka, are trying to lay low at Akai's high school, but dark forces from both Earth and space are conspiring against them...

STORY:

Have you ever read a manga that felt so much like someone's fanfic with the ~~copyrighted characters~~ serial numbers filed off that it's uncanny? That's what reading Hyper Dolls was like for me. It's basically Itoh making a story about "what if the Dirty Pair went to some rando's high school?", except it's nowhere near as fun as that premise should be.

The biggest problem is that Hyper Dolls keeps shifting its focus away from its titular duo and instead on the boring high school boy. Akai is a total nobody, and the only other person less interesting than him is the local detective who is trying to track down the source of all these extraterrestrial goings-on. Naturally, this means that they totally merit 2/3rd of the book with their own little plot threads. Meanwhile, Miyu and Miaka are largely left to the sides unless they're needed to kick a giant alien monster in the face or threaten Akai to keep him from telling their secret, with barely a quirk or two to their name to distinguish one from the other.

The fight scenes seem to be the only time this manga really comes to life. There is energy and excitement, and Itoh does try his best to drag them out as much as reasonably possible. It's just that everything in between is so tedious that it doesn't feel worth it. I think I would have rather read the Dirty Pair high school AU fanfic that this story wants to be.

ART:

Itoh does certainly try his best to relieve the tedium with his art, and at times he does succeed. He clearly loves drawing fights, the bigger the better. The girls fly in and out of frame, every punch and kick has impact, and it all tends to end in explosions. He's also got some decent comic timing; while his wild takes are nothing special visually, he times them well. He also kind of struggles with profiles, which is a shame because the character designs aren't bad. They're pretty much like 80% of what most anime and manga looked like in the mid-90s, but it has a nostalgic sort of charm.

PRESENTATION:

There's an author's note before the story where Itoh talks about the influences on this story. He cites Ultraman, martial arts films and...The Poe Clan, an old shojo manga about vampires written by Moto Hagio.

...

Okay.

RATING:

While the artwork isn't bad, it's not enough to overcome the tedium and the derivative nature of the story of Hyper Dolls. Just stick with the actual Dirty Pair, whether it's the anime or the original light novels. You'll likely have more fun doing so.

This series was published by Studio Ironcat. This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes available. 3 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

We return from hiatus with a monstrously good selection of manga to review this month. Our first review may be the most unnerving thing we'll see all month: a harem manga that's actually good!

MY MONSTER SECRET: ACTUALLY I AM... (Jitsu wa Watashi wa...), by Eiji Masuda. First published in 2013 and first published in North America in 2016.

PLOT:

Asahi can't keep a secret to save his life. Even when he tries, his complete and utter lack of poker face gives everything away in no time. That's why it's no surprise that his friends quickly figure out that he's crushing on Youko, the cool-tempered beauty of the class. When Asahi finally musters up the courage to confess his feelings, he discovers Youko's secret: she is a vampire.

Asahi swears to protect her secret at all costs so she can keep going to their school, but how long will he last when he has to struggle not only against his own feelings, but the efforts of his snooping classmate Mikan?

STORY:

I've been writing reviews for this blog for over half a decade, and virtually every time I've reviewed a harem manga in that time I've been disappointed. Today is not just an exception, but possibly the best harem manga I've ever read (to say nothing of the best 'monster girl' series). How is this possible?

It can't be due to the cast...well, not entirely at least. The girls are fairly endearing, be it Youko (the vampire) or Aizawa (the class rep/tiny alien in a human mech suit). That's not so much because of their personalities, but because the manga mines a lot of good humor between their public personalities and how bad they are at (barely) hiding their true identities. Despite the fact that this is technically a monster girl harem, Masuda doesn't fetishize the girls' monstrous qualities in the same way other manga of this sort do, which keeps away the feelings of grossness and exploitation that ruined the likes of Monster Musume for me.

It's certainly not due to Asahi. Aside from his inability to keep a secret, he's not much different than the usual bland putz protagonist. The best character might be the one that's the closest this series has to a villain: Mikan. She's a sadist who lives for gossip, and Asahi is her best source for both. She quickly figures out that Asahi is hiding something and spends the latter half of this volume stalking him and Youko in the goofiest manner possible. She's terrible yet hilariously inept, which makes her a great comic villain.

I think what won me over on My Monster Secret was its sense of humor. A lot of harem manga try for comedy, but the wackiness is forced and they tend to lean too hard on the same old, overdone sex jokes. Too many of them are convinced that fanservice alone is the funniest joke of all. Thankfully, Masuda avoids these pitfalls. The gags here aren't complex, but they rely more on farce than fanservice and virtually all of them are beautifully timed. Compared to most harem manga, this one is positively chaste. Asahi wants a girlfriend, but never once does consider perving on the girls around him (or their undergarments) and that alone is incredibly refreshing.

Maybe that was the secret all along. Maybe if more harem manga focused on the quality of their jokes and cast, they could replicate My Monster Secret's own particular brand of irrepressible charm.

ART:

Even more so than the comedy, what I truly loved about My Monster Secret was the art. Masuda's artstyle is kind of old fashioned where the casts frequently bursts into big, rubbery expressions and enormous grins. These big reactions go a long way on selling the jokes to the audience and communicating the girls' personalities. Youko has big, warm smiles that charm the reader as much as Asahi, while Mikan's maniacal grins and blank-eyed stares lend her fanaticism a wacky edge. He also kind of undersells the girls' monstrous physical qualities. Youko only possesses a pair of wings and fans, while Aizawa is largely imperceptible from human girls save for the giant screw in her ponytail.

RATING:

My Monster Secret easily rises above the rest on the strength of its goofy art and great sense of humor. It's the monster girl harem manga for people who don't like monster girls or harems and it's one that comes highly recommended.

This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is ongoing in Japan with 22 volumes available. 13 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

Well, in the past I've dedicated this month to both Evangelion manga and Gundam manga. I might as well keep up this trend and explore some of the other mecha manga out there, starting with a beloved franchise from the olden days.

PATLABOR (Kido Keisatsu Patlabor), by Masami Yuki, based on the series created by HEADGEAR. First published in 1988 and first published in North America in 1998.

PLOT:

In the near future, Tokyo is full of powered robotic suits called "labors." Most of them are used for construction and other forms of industry, but there are those who would use them for crime. To combat this, the Tokyo Police creates a labor force of their own under the guidance of the laid-back Captain Goto. Goto assembles a ragtag crew of cadets to pilot these labors, ranging from the loud, thuggish Isao Ota to abrasive Asuma Shinohara to tiny, eager Noa Izumi. Together they must prove their value to their superiors and the city at large...at least, as soon as they learn to work together.

STORY:

Ah, Patlabor. Unlike most notable mecha titles, it's neither a space opera nor some other sort of sci-fi epic but instead a down-to-earth (and often comedic) police procedural. It's far less Gundam and a lot more Police Academy. Perhaps the reason it makes the transition from TV to manga so smoothly is because of those decidedly un-epic qualities.

Patlabor is a fairly egalitarian story. While Noa serves as our leading lady, the story is just as much about her teammates as it is about her. Noa is an easy character to love and even easier to respect with her eagerness to help others and her incredible mechanical and piloting skills. Meanwhile, Goto is there mostly to provide low-key comedy with his lackadaisical approach to...well, everything. The rest of the crew is a lot louder and goofier in comparison, but in varied enough ways to keep the jokes novel.

The sci-fi elements work well, but that's probably because the Tokyo of Patlabor isn't all that far removed from our own version. The places and names are all the same; the only major difference is the presence of mecha, and even then it's used for the most mundane tasks possible. Being a police procedural, there are plenty of action sequences sprinkled throughout, culminating in a city-wide chase with a pair of eco-terrorists. It all comes together with the sci-fi, the comedy, and the character moments to create a mecha series that is unique and timeless.

ART:

Masami Yuki's art is much like the story: unpretentious, but full of character. Of course, he had a lot of good material to reference, be it Akemi Takada's charming character designs or Yutaka Izubuchi's sleek yet practical designs for the labors. Still, he interprets them well, even if his action sequences are a little stiff.

RATING:

It's a shame Viz cut this series off before it really got going, because it's one of the few TV-to-manga adaptations that actually works and one of the few good mecha manga I've come across in my time reviewing manga. It captures the charm of the original OVAs without losing sight of the plot, and as we'll see that's rarer in mecha manga than it should be.

This series was licensed by Viz. This series is complete in Japan with 22 volumes. 2 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

Sadly, for every quality mecha manga like last week's example, there are plenty more like today's selection: one where it is merely an accessory to a lot of nonsense and bad ideas.

KANNAZUKI NO MIKO: DESTINY OF THE SHRINE MAIDEN, by Kaishaku. First published in 2004 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Himeko is a passive, insecure young girl who is not only friends with the class idol Chikane, but is secretly admired from afar by the handsome and mysterious Souma. Her quaint life and happy friendship is broken when a strange eclipse lets loose demonic forces and powerful robot suits in order to try and kill her. Himeko is saved by a combination of Chikane's kiss and Souma switching sides and fighting back the demons. Now their fates are tied together by an ancient prophecy where the girls must seal the evil away...if it doesn't tear them apart first.

STORY:

Kannazuki no Miko is an utter mess. Imagine taking the worst parts of half a dozen manga genres, patching them together crudely with duct tape, and dressing that up with a touch of skeezy lesbian smut in the vain hope of distracting others from your mess and you have some notion of what Kannazuki no Miko is like.

I have many issues with this story, and most of them revolve around one thing: Himeko. She's not so much a girl as she is a sea slug; a spineless, wibbly thing that spends most of her time mentally beating herself up for not being as inhumanely perfect as Chikane and thus unworthy of anyone's time or attention. She is passive in every way conceivable and this makes her irritating beyond belief.

Not that the cast gives her much in the way of competition. Chikane is unreal in how practically perfect she is in every respect, and the only thing that remotely humanizes her is the one quality that becomes increasingly creepy and problematic as the manga goes on: her desire for Himeko. I don't see what Chikane sees in her personally, unless she's got a fetish for helpless creatures. In a time before yuri manga became popular, this was the sort off thing that yuri fans had to settle for, but as far as relationships go it's insipid at best and disturbing at its worst. Worst still, despite being the heroines of destiny, her and Himeko's efforts are overshadowed entirely by the dull-as-dishwater Souma. Whether it's his piloting a random mech or pursuing his own crush on Himeko, he's there to overshadow the girls with his own angst.

The plot is meant to be a riff on the myth of the demon Orochi, full of portents and prophecy, but in practice it's mostly brief, chaotic mecha fights padded generously with boring lore and love triangle nonsense, punctuated at the end with an act of rape that is confusing in execution and infuriating in intent. It's a terrible ride from beginning to end and it's one I wish I had never started.

ART:

Kaishaku aren't impressive writers, and their drawing skills are no better. The girls look weirdly bobbleheaded and I suspect that due to a combination of their enormously poofy and overly long hair and their equally poofy and poorly designed school uniforms. Like proper hacks, Kaishaku find plenty of excuses for fanservice. Most of it is just the usual empty fluff (because you're not going to tell me there are plot reasons for having an extended bathing sequence with Himeko and Chikane), but others are downright tonally dissonant. Why else would you have your two leads enter into a weirdly hot 'n' heavy make-out session before one sexually assaults the other?

You'd think that the mechs might be one place where their creativity could shine, but each one is just a different flavor of short, squarish, and clunky. The mech battles are drawn entirely in close-up, turning them into a jumble of robot parts, explosions, and sound effects. The strange thing is that the calmer moments are composed in similar bad, busy ways. It's just a mess all around.

RATING:

Kannazuki no Miko fails at virtually every level. It's a bad mecha series, it's a bad yuri series, it's a bad action series, it has bad art, it has a bad heroine, and it's boring and ugly on top of it all. My expectations were low, but this managed to fail hard enough to rank among the worst manga I've ever read for this site.

This series was published by Tokyopop. This series is complete in Japan with 2 volumes available. Both volumes were published and are currently out of print.

BROKEN BLADE (Bureiku Bureido), by Yunosuke Yoshinaga. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Rygart Arrow is a one-in-a-million sort of guy. He lives in a world where people can manipulate quartz to obtain magic energy and fight an endless war, but Rygart is completely unable to do so. His father even went so far as to send Rygart to military school to try and develop some sort of ability, but all Rygart got out of it was a lot of debt and some friends in high places.

Years later, Rygart is summoned by one of those old school friends, who now happens to be king. It seems that the military discovered an ancient mech suit in a quartz mine, but no one has been able to start it. When Rygart climbs in, the suit comes to life, but now Rygart finds himself in a battle against a massive army as well as another old friend.

STORY:

I was honestly surprised to learn that Broken Blade was an original story and NOT an adaptation of a light novel. I say this not because it's bad, but because its approach to world-building feels closer to that than anything else.

I get it, to a degree. Sci-fi stories always require a lot of set-up. You have to explain the technology and the world around them to some degree or else the audience will be lost. Good writers can weave this information into their narratives deftly and organically. This is not an example of one of those works.

Instead, it's closer to the light novel-model of exposition, where people talk to one another in long, tedious spiels explaining things that they should already know for the sake of their unseen audience. It's clunky and forced and it's a method that does Broken Blade no favors. I swear, two-thirds of this volume is nothing but characters explaining their own technology to one another. It also doesn't help that the premise isn't far removed from the "boring guy at magic school who has no obvious power but actually has a super power (and also a harem of girls)" premise that was all the rage in the light novel world only a few years down the line from its original release.

There is one part of the story that is written well, and that's the friendship between Rygart, the royal couple, and their mutual friend (and general for the opposing side) Zess. We don't get a lot of glimpses of their time together at school, but the tone of the conversation between Rygart and the royals manages is enough to communicate to the audience how close they are without clobbering the readers with the obvious. There's even a bit of lingering romantic tension between Rygart and the queen for a touch of additional drama. If only it weren't so obvious to see what will happen to these guys, or to guess Zess's sudden yet inevitable heelturn. It's a solid beginning to a sci-fi story, but it's also regrettably a predictable and sometimes clunky one as well.

ART:

Broken Blade's art is pretty much on par with its storytelling. The characters are a bit on the bland side, but they're expressive enough and Yoshinaga does put some care into their costumes and shading. The backgrounds are mostly barren buttes and rocks, but it lends the story the sort of desolate atmosphere it needs. The mechanical designs aren't half-bad, with the Blades resembling what would happen if a Gundam had a drunken one-night-stand with a suit of armor. Sadly, action is not his strong suit. The mech battles all seem to be drowning in speed lines in a vain attempt to convey motion.

RATING:

Broken Blade manages to prop up its lackluster story with some decent art and character writing, but it can't quite save itself from getting lost in its own technobabble.

This series was published by CMX. This series is ongoing in Japan, with 16 volumes available. 3 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

Let's wrap up this month of mecha with an adaptation of one of my favorite mecha series (as well as one of the first ones I ever watched).

GURREN LAGANN (Tengan Toppan Gurren Lagann), based on the series by GAINAX and Kazuki Nakashima, with art by Kotaro Mori. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Simon is a lowly digger in the underground city of Ghia. His only friend is his 'big bro' Kamina, a teenage rebel who wants nothing more than to see the surface. Their adventure begins when a giant robot falls through the ceiling, followed shortly by a beautiful, rifle-wielding girl named Yoko. They all escape together in a small, head-shaped robot that Simon found while digging, but the surface world is full of new people, robots, and danger.

STORY:

The Gurren Lagann manga is a fairly faithful retelling of the first five episodes of the series. That is both a plus and a minus here.

Everything that works well about those first five episodes works just as well here. Simon and Kamina make a good pair of leads, with Kamina bringing bravado and guts while Simon helps to ground him through his thoughtfulness, quietness, and anxiety. There are plenty of great action setpieces that only get bigger and crazier with each new one. Mori even manages to preserve some of the sense of blissful insanity that would define the show (as well as the director's later works).

Mori even makes some good changes here, mostly by remixing some of the events from Episodes 3 through 5 to make them flow a little better. The downside, as always, is that if you've seen the show you've already seen this all before in a much more dynamic package. This may be a better screen-to-page adaptation than most, but its literalness and redundance will turn off those most likely to pick this up.

ART:

Mori also does a decent job with replicating the look of the show...at least, as much as one can in still image. The cast and the mechs look more or less the same as they do on the show. Mori does his best to recreate some of the bigger, more iconic shots of the show. He even tries to replicate Yoko's jiggliness (and throws in a lot more ass shots to boot). Much like the Evangelion manga, though, it has to compete with its animated counterpart when it comes to the action and that's always a losing battle. Gurren Lagann was a show acclaimed for its energetic and loose animation and those are qualities that are simply impossible to reproduce on the page. Worse still, Mori stages these fights in a way that feels messy and hard-to-follow. That's never a great quality in a manga, but in a mecha series it's a series killer.

RATING:

Gurren Lagann's manga counterpart tries its hardest to capture the show in its pages, but it loses its visual verve in the process and doesn't add anything new to the experience.

This series was published by Bandai. This series is complete in Japan with 10 volumes available. 7 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

It's time once more for the Manga Test Drive's annual Holiday Reviews! Every day from now until Christmas, we will cover 25 of the year's most notable releases!

It also means that it's time for our annual Holiday Review Giveaway! As always, the prize is a $25 Rightstuf Gift Certificate so that you can go out and buy some of the best books we covered as part of those post-Christmas sales.

As always, entry is simple: just leave a comment below about what YOUR favorite manga of 2018 was. Old or new, it doesn't matter - so long as it was new to you, it works! This year, we'll also be accepting entries on Twitter, so if Blogger gives you a hassle just leave a comment HERE!

The giveaway ends at the end of Christmas Day, so get typing and enjoy the reviews!

Considering what a strange, disastrous year this has been for the US, it feels weirdly fitting to kick this year's holiday reviews off with a manga that's also about trying to life one's life in the middle of an ongoing disaster of unprecedented scale.

DEAD DEAD DEMON'S DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION (Deddo Deddo Demonzu Dededededesutorakushun), by Inio Asano. First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Three years ago, a giant flying saucer appeared over Tokyo, destroying buildings and killing hundreds. The conflict has come to a standstill, and as the government debates how to handle the menace others simply try to live out their lives. That's certainly true for Kadode and her best friend Oran. As they deal with friendships, exams, and awkward crushes on teachers, they wonder if there's any point to it all.

STORY:

I swear, I keep trying and trying with Inio Asano. I know how well-acclaimed they are and I want to see what others see in it, but the cold detachment he brings to this work (and pretty much everything else he's ever written) keeps me from connecting with it in any sort of meaningful fashion.

I know that this feeling is part of the point of this series. Kadode and Oran are meant to feel detached from the world, whether it's those who are gung-ho about fighting aliens or those who try a little too hard to pretend that it's not happening. That's on top of the uncertainty that usually comes with the end of high school, where the world expects you have figured things out and prepared to leave childish things behind, whether that's actually true or not. Connecting that thematically to the invasion subplot works incredibly well thematically.

I also like the way he writes Kadode and Oran, along with the rest of the girls in their social circle. Instead of being cutesy and moe, they're kind of weird and shitty to one another. Some of them cultivate purposeful personas to get attention, others like Kadode mostly hope to coast through the world unnoticed. Yet there's still a sense of deep friendship beneath, even if most of them would be loathe to say it out loud. There are some relationships here that deserve a bit of side-eye (namely the one between Kadode and her homeroom teacher, which doesn't cross the line into romance but is a little too close for comfort), but it's a humanizing touch in an unreal situation.

Yet I feel like there's something holding me back from full immersing myself in this world. It's like the very air of detachment and irony it cultivates becomes a glass wall, holding me back from getting too close. It's unfortunate because I can recognize the good things Asano is going here as a writer, but the emotional distance makes it hard to truly care.

ART:

There's a weird yet purposeful disconnect her between the character designs. Asano's never been shy about the fact that he rotoscopes his backgrounds (although he also adds a lot more detail to those images), but he positively goes crazy with it here. It does work as far as giving the reader a sense that this is taking place in modern-day Tokyo in an ordinary sort of neighborhood. I also suspect he did something similar for the flying saucers themselves. The main one looks like an upside-down city; the smaller ones like overgrown satellite dishes.

This is in contrast to the characters, most of which look like something that could have stepped off the pages of something like Hidamari Sketch. It's hard to believe that these girls are meant to be high schoolers when they have squishy mochi heads, beady little eyes, and are half the height of the adults around them. It is a little weird to see this style of character design outside of more inane or fanservice-driven works. I suspect that this is meant to visually communicate their immaturity, considering the adults look perfectly normal (at least compared to other Asano works).

RATING:

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction is thematically complex and artistically intriguing, but its cold ironic tone is just as likely to alienate readers as it is to draw them in.

This series is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 7 volumes available. 3 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

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While some series approach world-wide disaster with irony and ennui, others approach it by going full edgelord and adding in some wrestling moves to boot.

GOLOSSEUM, by Yasushi Baba. First published in 2015 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

At the beginning of the 20th century, 3 strange records fell to earth. To most they sounded like just noise, but for a select few they held the secrets to incredible power. Decades later, the technology the records contained are used to create special bracelets that can enhance a person's strength and repel virtually every weapon save for physical attacks from other enhanced fighters. The leaders of the world hope to use their own arsenal of super-soldiers to gain power, but all of them are on the hunt for the most powerful soldier of them all: Sasha, a Russian woman known as the White Witch.

STORY:

Golosseum feels like an artifact of the 80s and not in the good ways. Despite the fact that it features expies of modern figures like Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton, and Hulk Hogan, this feels like a C-list imitation of the sleezier parts of Kazuo Koike of Ryoichi Ikegami's works. There's an audience for this - after all, there's a reason that similarly toned works like Gantz, Baki the Grappler, and Terra Formars have gone on as long as they have in Japan - but it feels woefully out of step with the world despite only being a few years old.

This manga only has two modes: Tedious Exposition and Extreme Edgelord Wrasslin.' The former makes up the majority of the manga, and most of it involves various world leaders conspiring against one another for pages at a time. Each of them has all the subtlety of Snidley Whiplash and they are all too prone to explaining their plans out loud only for the sake of the audience. It's an incredibly clumsy way to deliver exposition, and not even the additional of bizarre, fantastical elements like an immortal, non-evil Rasputin and gold records from space that give people superpowers can help.

The rest of the exposition is meant to explain the whats and whys about our ostensible heroine, Sasha. It's too bad then that she's boring as hell. She's cold and emotionless, and despite Baba's attempts to humanize her through her handle and a random Japanese girl she befriends, I cared no more for her than anyone else in the manga. That's not even getting into how much it ogles her, despite the fact that she's meant to be 14 with an adult woman's physique. That's also not getting into the casual racism that's sprinkled across the story like so many rat droppings

That leaves us with the action, and how thrilling you find will depend a lot on how much you get out of literally earth-shattering German suplexes. The fights are brutal, but as they get more extreme they tend to get more ridiculous. Worse still, the exposition doesn't even stop for them as the fighters continue to explain all their plans and power-ups to one another as they toss and punch one another around. Never have I ever wanted a manga to simply shut up and fight the way I did with this one, just so it would be over sooner.

ART:

The Koike and Ikegami comparisons feel rather apt as like both of those men, Baba is clearly a talented artist. He knows how to draw a good, straightforward bare-knuckle brawl and give each punch and slam a sense of impact. He draws good faces, and is clearly capable of capturing celebrity likenesses in a way that avoids caricature. Also like those men, he clearly spends more effort on drawing men than women, as both Sasha and her friend Rumi are drawn more for fanservice than anything else. If only this talent was in use for something that was compelling.

At least the cover design is good. It's purposefully evoking the look of B-movie posters and wrestling ads, which certainly fits the tone.

RATING:

Golosseum is a relic that's too hung up on explaining itself and shocking its audience to genuinely thrill them. It's awkward, gross, and offensive, and thankfully it has already been forgotten.

This series is published by Yen Press. It is complete in Japan with 6 volumes. 4 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

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Nothing could compete for controversy this year quite like today's selection. Although Yen Press has been quietly releasing this digitally in chapters for some time, it only blew up in popularity after its animated adaptation began airing.

Oh, if only had it stayed obscure forever.

GOBLIN SLAYER (Goburin Sureiya), based on the original story by Kumo Kagyu and character designs by Noboru Kannatuki with art by Kousuke Kurose. First published in 2016, and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

For the Priestess, this was meant to be just another adventure for her newly formed group of adventurers. Little could she have known that what was meant to be a mission to kill some simple goblins would end with most of her party killed, tortured, and cruelly violated. At the last minute, she is saved by a hulking figure in a suit of armor, known only as Goblin Slayer. His only purpose in life is to kill every goblin he can find. The common folk adore him; other high-ranking adventurers scorn him; to Priestess, he is a savior.

STORY:

Goblin Slayer is precisely as bad as you've heard it to be. It's grim, violent, misogynistic, shallow, and half-baked. It's the revenge fantasy of a 13 year old boy angry at the world, pouring over his D&D manual as he scribbles story notes and poorly drawn anime girls in a notebook, convinced of his own genius. It's a thoroughly bad time, and the fact that so many people are responding to this story positively makes me question the taste of this fandom at large.

The story wants so very, VERY badly for you to believe that Goblin Slayer is cool. The creators want you to be awed by his strategies, thrilled by his bloodshed, and all but rubbing your hands in glee at the prospect of those who scorn him getting their just desserts. They have an idea of how a dark fantasy lead acts, but not what makes the best examples of them compelling. It's not enough to have a dark and gritty look to go with your dark and gritty backstory. There has to be something recognizably human within them, some quality capable of growth, emotion, or hope. Goblin Slayer is utterly lacking in these. His mind is consumed entirely with thoughts of death and revenge, losing everything down to his name in the process, unable and unwilling to connect with the very people he saves, l. A wise person would see this as the foundation of a tragedy, but the shallow fool writing this thinks it just makes him badass.

In true edgelord fashion, the only thing this story hates more than goblins is women. Priestess, our oh-so-creatively named protagonist, is a quivering chihuahua of a girl with barely any personality to speak of. Her innocence and empathy for others is scorned by Goblin Slayer (and by extension, the audience), and her only contribution to the story is her white magic (and in true D&D fashion, she can only use her spells so many times per day). The sad thing is this is a better fate than every other woman in this book. Those that aren't starry-eyed admirers or nakedly arrogant are used as cannon fodder, slaughtered and raped in as graphic a manner as a mainstream shonen manga can allow.

There's just so little going on under the surface of Goblin Slayer. This isn't just a matter of poor worldbuilding (although there's plenty I could nitpick there), it's a matter of being spiritually empty. It has nothing to offer but misery and spite, and that's uglier than any goblin.

ART:

Kurose's art doesn't deviate much from the original illustrations, but what it does add mostly comes from the world of hentai doujin. He clearly savors every scene of assault, dragging them our far longer than either the original light novel or the anime adaptation. Their contorted faces, twisting bodies, and dripping sweat and tears (and other implied fluids) are drawn with loving care. In fairness, the bodies of the women tend to twist weirdly even when not being raped, as there are a lot of snake-spined women showing off their goods on the page, the panels turning awkwardly to fit in every single curve.

The focus on the fanservice comes at the expense of the actual action. The fights are cramped, chaotic affairs, which might be an effective bit of mood building if not for the fact that otherwise mudane scenes are laid out in the same fashion. Kurose tends to lean heavily on speedlines to convey movement, and since so much of this volume takes place in a cave there isn't much to say for the backgrounds. It's sad when I would rather look at the 4-koma gag strips on the back side of each cover than I would at the book itself.

PRESENTATION:

The only extra is a few pages of a side story from the original light novel author, which doesn't particularly add much. The prose manages to be both terse and rambling, and occasionally is strangely formatted.

RATING:

Goblin Slayer is a hollow fantasy-flavored power fantasy that's ugly and hateful through and through. I'd sooner read a dozen isekai manga beginning to end than pick up this first volume again.

This series is published by Yen Press. This series is ongoing in Japan with 5 volumes available. 3 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

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No, if you want something that is both edgy and substantial, you'll have to look to the past and to one of the manga world's most noted creators. This year saw a lot of older titles get their first proper releases in English, but thanks to Masaki Yuasa's incredible adaptation few were as anticipated as this.

DEVILMAN (Debiruman), by Go Nagai. First published in 1972, and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Akira Fudo is a gentle boy who abhors violence. Yet when his best friend Ryo returns with stories of demons taking over the earth, Akira is ready and willing to help him fight. To do so, Akira must fuse with the demon Amon without losing his pure human heart. So long as he can keep control, he can use his devil powers to fight the demons that not only threaten his family and friends, but history and humanity itself.

STORY:

If I had to sum up Devilman in a word, it would be "raw." The passion and energy that fuels this work is raw and fresh even decades later, but it also has the unevenness of a fairly new creator and a genre only just starting to stretch its boundaries. It can be silly and sublime in equal measure, and the moments when it finds the perfect balance between the two are positively electric.

That being said, it takes a while for it to find its footing. Early on there are long stretches where Ryo explains not only his backstory, but also the hows and whys of the demon world. It's necessary to a degree, but it does slow the pace to a crawl. I wonder if that wasn't purposeful, though, to make it all the more impactful when Ryo opens the door to a drug-fueled hippie sabbath. From that moment, the story moves forward at full gear, reaching its emotional peak with Akira's showdown with Jinrei.

Sadly, that momentum is halted after that, although not on purpose. Seven Seas' release of this not only includes the original series, but also stories from the 1979 spin-off Shin Devilman. It is meant to take place around the mid-point of the series, but going from catharsis to Akira & Ryo's Excellent Adventure is a hard left turnl That's not even getting into the actual content of these side stories. For every one that's good (such as the one where demons put Joan of Arc on trial), there's one in more...questionable taste (such as the one where Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews spawns from a demon killing his one true love). I could have lived with a smaller omnibus and a separate release for Shin Devilman if it meant keeping the story's emotional arc intact.

ART:

Much like the story, Nagai's art is kind of all over the place. His faces are goony and broad in the vein of 1960s shonen, but their bodies are long and lithe (and naked on more than one occasion. Nagai was a pioneer in the field of fanservice). Yet when Akira transforms into Devilman and starts fighting demons, things get positively DYNAMIC.

There are some incredible sequences here, be it the clever use of speedlines and sequence to amplify the blows between Devilman and Silene or Akira's anger visualized by drawing the scene in rough charcoal. You can see him growing and experimenting as an artist with each chapter, and it's kind of thrilling to watch. This goes double for the the Shin Devilman chapters, where everything is more refined (although still pretty suggestive at times). It's interesting stuff, and it's proof that Nagai deserves credit for more than just really big eyebrows and sideburns.

RATING:

Devilman is rough at times, but it's also proof of what a talented mangaka Go Nagai was, even early on in his career. The art is incredible and Nagai manages to delve into some sincere emotions at times. Just try to skip over the time-travel stuff. It's better that way.

This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes available. All 5 have been published in omnibus form and are currently in print.

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Thankfully, there are isekai stories out there that aren't naked power fantasies, edgelord or otherwise. Some of them are just about having nice bar food.

OTHERWORLDY IZAKAYA NOBU (Isekai Izakaya "Nobu"), based on the story by Natsuya Semikawa and character designs by Kururi; art by Virginia Nitouhei. First published in 2015 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

With the medieval walled city of Eiteriach, there is a strange pub that serves as a portal to another world. Within its walls, the head chef and his friendly waitress Shinobu offer up classic izakaya fare to the grateful populace. Whether it's soldiers from the city watch, snooty tax collectors, or fussy aristocrats, all find themselves overwhelmed by the exotic new food and cold mugs of 'whatsontapp.'

STORY:

The combination of isekai stories and food manga is an increasingly popular combination in Japanese media these days, so the existence of this manga was kind of inevitable. That being said, these two flavors never quite seem to mesh the way you think they would.

While I'm grateful that this isekai story doesn't involve video games or reincarnated losers in any way, shape or form, there isn't much to this otherworld. That's presuming that it is an alternate world at all; there doesn't appear to be any sort of magic or fantasy trappings and everyone seems to be speaking plain old German. While a story based around being transported to another time would be a novel twist on a tired formula, it's hard to get a pin on when this is supposed to be set over than 'vaguely medieval times.' The personalities of the customers doesn't help to define this world any better, as they're mostly familiar archetypes united only by their love of Nobu's food.

One of my least favorite variations of food manga is the kind where people go into raptures about otherwise ordinary Japanese dishes. There's only so many times you watch someone go into raptures for pages at at time about curry rice before you start to get a bit jaded. Since this is set in a izakaya, the standard dishes are a bit different but are otherwise well-known Japanese dishes and sides: edamame, kara-age, oden, spaghetti napolitan, and so on. There are some slightly more exotic dishes as the volume goes on, such as tonjiru (a pork miso stew) and ankake yudofu (a cube of tofu gently stewed in dashi stock), but the townfolk go into raptures over every single one like they were the finest five-star cuisine. They even have visions that could have come straight out of Food Wars! (minus the rampant nudity). It gets a bit ludicrous, and unlike other food manga there isn't enough of an ongoing story or a compelling cast to ground these moments in some sense of reality, even in this unreal world.

ART:

This is one of the first times I've seen a manga adapted from an LN where the art is BETTER than the original. From what I've seen of the original light novel illustrations, they are perfectly ordinary, but Nitouhei puts a lot more care into the visual here. She doesn't do anything drastic as far as composition, but she clearly puts care into the character designs, the backgrounds and (most importantly) the food. They all have a nice sense of dimension, and the restaurant feels as homely as any good pub should feel.

RATING:

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu should be as satisfying as a cool mug of beer, but instead it comes off as bland and half-baked. It's pretty enough, but the setting, characters, and menu are all too bland for their own good.

This series is published by Udon. This series is ongoing in Japan with 5 volumes available. 1 volume has been published and is currently in print.

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Meanwhile, in the world of shonen that doesn't involve apocalypse and/or fantasy, Dark Horse was out there releasing one of the better examples out there to virtually no fanfare.

MOB PSYCHO 100 (Mobu Saiko Hyaku), by ONE. First published in 2012 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Just looking at him, Shigeo would seem like just another anonymous teen boy. He doesn't much in the way of looks, ambition or hobbies. Even his nickname, Mob, refers to the fact that he's just another face in the crowd. What they don't know is that Mob has great pyschic power, although he keeps it mostly repressed. The only person who does know is Reigen, a wanna-be spirit medium who exploits Mob's powers to hide his own lack of them. Even then, Mob can only put up with so much frustration before his emotions and powers explode, and when they do the results are unpredictable.

STORY:

Honestly, I couldn't sum up Mob Pyscho 100 better than ONE does himself in the thank you notes: "Even a superhuman goes through the anxieties of adolescence, and maybe they deal with the stress building up too - that is how this manga was born."

Much like One Punch Man before it, ONE has managed to tap into something very basic and relatable and transform that into a superhero manga, even if the superheroism isn't as obvious this time around. In many ways, Mob Pyscho 100 is closer to a slife-of-life manga. We see him dealing with pushy high school club, trying to transform himself to impress a girl, dealing with a crappy boss, and so on. The fact that he's largely unimpressed with the histrionics of others is the core of a lot of the comedy in this book. It also makes it more impressive at the moment he DOES lose control, because it's both an emotional and literal explosion and it's cathartic to behold.

As good as that was, I was amused the most with his interactions with Reigen. He's the perfect foil to Mob's complacence, a fast-talking hustler who is always on the verge of being exposed as a fraud and gets buy mostly through bravado and massage skills. He sees himself as a sort of mentor to Mob, urging him to be as selfish and half-assed as he is, and Mob mostly goes along with it so he can get paid. It's such an interesting and funny dynamic, yet it's also kind of the emotional heart of the story. It all adds up to a story that's quirky, human, fantastical, and funny, a combination that is quickly becoming ONE's specialty.

ART:

One Punch Man had the advantage of Yusuke Murata's amazing art, but Mob Pyscho 100 is purely ONE's work. That means that the artwork here is a lot more flat and rough, but not without its charms. He's still great at deadpan reactions, and there are moments where he plays with shading to great effect. Mob's pyschic explosion is the real stand-out piece of the book, as it displays the sort of visual ambition that makes you understand what drew people to ONE's work in the first place.

RATING:

Mob Psycho 100 shows that ONE is more than capable of carrying a great story by himself. His wonky art is far less a failing than it is a quirk, and his character writing and dry sense of humor more than makes up for it. The fact that Dark Horse isn't pushing this harder is shameful.

This series is published by Dark Horse Comics. This series is complete in Japan with 16 volumes. 1 volume has been released and is currently in print.

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Meanwhile, Kodansha was mostly busy publishing Fairy Tale spinoffs. The sad thing is that those are likely preferable to this series.

GRAND BLUE DREAMING (Guranburu), written by Kenji Inoue & art by Kimitake Yoshioka. First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Iori hoped that with the move to college and his uncle's seaside dive shop, he would be able to finally meet some girls and start enjoying his youth. Instead, he finds himself shanghai'd by the college diving club. They spend most of their time drinking and stripping, and more often than not Iori ends up getting dragged into it. Will ever learn to actually dive and maybe even impress his pretty cousins in the process?

STORY:

Reading Grand Blue Dreaming is like watching the Poochie episode of The Simpsons. Instead of wondering when Poochie's going to get to the fireworks factory, though, you wonder when Grand Blue Dreaming is going to get to the actual plot.

It's pretty easy to pin down what the ultimate point of this series is within the first few pages. Iori wants a girlfriend, but in the end he'll fall in love with the ocean and the whole thing will be about the friendships he made along the way. So why is it then that this first volume spends so much time on drunken hazing? You expect some degree of drunken partying in this sort of college coming-of-age story, but here it takes up 3/4ths of this first volume. That wouldn't be so bad if the guys Iori partied with were fun or interesting in their own right, but save for the token otaku they're all the same interchangable sort of loud, obnoxious bro.

Grand Blue Dreaming expects your patience on a lot of things. It expects your patience for random nudity to be endless, as Inoue likes to spam that joke constantly. It expects you to tolerate the fact that both of Iori's love interests are his cousins: one who is sweet, large-breasted, and has a sister complex that is mentioned once and never again; the other sarcastic, small-breasted, and more of a tsundere. It expects you to wait for the last chapter to actually see the club do something other than party, but its attempts to bring you the diving action, friendship, and love for the ocean, but its efforts are far too late for any sensible reader to care.

ART:

This book is full of fanservice...so long as you consider lots of images of naked, relatively buff college-aged guys 'fanservice.' Yoshioka is actually a pretty talented artist, and his fondness for exaggerated gonk faces speaks of a man who is likely just as influenced by Akira Hiramoto (of Prison School fame) as he was by Hideaki Sorachi (of Gintama fame). Beyond that, it's hard to say much about him because everything else, if simply because it's overshadowed by the constant repetition of the first two parts. We don't even get to see much of the oceanside scenery of the wonders of the deep (outside of an aquarium). This artist is kind of wasted on this story.

RATING:

Grand Blue Dreaming is a grand bore. It repeats lame jokes constantly while forgetting to build up its case, much less any sort of emotional core. It's not funny, it's not sincere, it's just....there, wasting time.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics. This series is ongoing in Japan with 12 volumes available. 3 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

Meanwhile, Weekly Shonen Jump is enjoying something of a boom, and Viz is reaping all the benefits. Sadly, most of the big-name titles debuted in English last year (if not before)...save for one.

DR. STONE, written by Riichiro Inagaki & art by Boichi. First published in 2017 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Taiju isn't anywhere near as bright as his chemistry-obsessed friend Senku, but he's loyal and determined and today he's determined to finally confess to his crush Yuzuhura. At that moment, though, a bright flash envelops the world transforming human flesh to stone. Thousands of years pass before Taiji is able to break free of his stony prison, only to find that Senku beat him by six months. Together the two find a way to rescue others, but Senku and Taiju soon find themselves in competition with another fellow classmate who sees this as a chance to rebuild the world without adults. The only way to stop him is to recreate gunpowder, but can these two do so while trying to rebuild civilization in this savage world?

STORY:

Dr. Stone is more educational than your average shonen manga, but Inagaki finds a way to make it fun and fanciful. Despite being a post-apocalyptic fantasy, this story is build around chemistry (of all things). Luckily, most of the science is delivered by Senku, who swiftly distinguishes himself as the true leading man. Yes, Taiji is our viewpoint character, but his brand of hyperactive loyalty has nothing on Senku's cool demeanor, subtle snark, and science skills. If anything, the story would benefit from Taiji calming down a little. Right now he's at 11 almost constantly, and after a while he gets exhausting.

Since Inagaki's clearly planning on this being a long series, he takes his time setting everything up: the setting, our primary cast, and their first major conflict. It's good, solid, comicmaking, but not without some hiccups. There's the fact that Yuzuhura, Taiji's crush, is a total nonentity beyond being the Token Girl, and it's real easy to start getting nitpicky about some of the science we see (along with a few other plot points). Yet the whole package is delightful enough that I didn't mind. It's a good beginning, and hopefully it can keep up the more positive parts for a long time.

ART:

You have to hand it to Inagaki: he's got an eye for up-and-coming artists. This was true when he brought on Yusuke Murata to draw Eyeshield 21, and it's just as true here, where he's working with noted Korean artist Boichi. Boichi has made something of a name for himself in seinen with a gritty, lovingly detailed style and a knack for action. Thus, it's interesting to see him loosen up a little and let himself get a little more broad.

The characters here are a little more simplified, with their big eyes and outrageous expressions, as well as Senku's vaguely Einstein-esque hair. That being said, you can tell which ones got more love than others, be it Senku with his instantly iconic look or Tsukasa (the rival) who could have easily stepped out of one of Boichi's previous works if not for the lionskin robe. Yet he brings his usual level of skill to the lush jungles of what was once Japan, as well as a dynamic and fluid approach to fight sequences. If this is what he's capable of now, I can't wait to see what he'll do 10 or 20 volumes down the road.

RATING:

The combination of a novel premise and a talented artist makes Dr. Stone of the most entertaining debuts to come out of Weekly Shonen Jump in the last few years. I can only hope that those charms last and make the leap into animation gracefully.

This series is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 8 volumes available. 2 volumes have been released and are currently in print. This series is also serialized weekly via Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha.

This year did not want for comedy manga, thanks to the adventures of ~~Japanese Garfield~~ Umaru-chan!

HIMOUTO! UMARU-CHAN, by Sankakuhead. First published in 2013, and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

To the wider world, Umaru Doma is the perfect high school girl. Pretty, poised, brilliant, and talented at every task she sets herself to, she is the envy of every kid in her class. Once she gets home, though, she becomes Umaru-chan: a selfish, lazy otaku who pigs out on junk food, torments her brother, and manipulates him to get her way. The only thing that Umaru works harder at than being a pest is keeping others from discovering her true self, but a strange silent classmate might ruin all of her work in a moment.

STORY:

Umaru-Chan is one of those manga that has no middle ground. Either you will love it or you will hate it, and what side you take will depend a lot on how you respond to Umaru herself.

The jokes online about Umaru being like Japanese Garfield are not just based around her orange hamster hoodie. Like Garfield, she's lazy, snarky, gluttonous, and lives to torment her keeper. Also like Garfield, her comic is pretty repetitive. The details change, but the basic joke structure doesn't change for at least 3/4th of this book. Worse still, the joke is always at the expense of Umaru's put-upon older brother Taihei. Umaru never really get any comeuppance for her brattiness, and that's what kept me from enjoying what comedy this book had to offer.

It might have helped if they had introduced more of the supporting cast sooner and used them more. I kind of wanted to see more of Sylphy, Umaru's (mostly self-appointed) rival, who appears to be your classic comic princess-type of character. I wish we had seen less of Ebina, Umaru's best friend whose only defining trait is "nervous." It's hard to say much about the mystery classmate as she's introduced at the last minute, but she at least promises some sort of relief from the formula Umaru-Chan has settled into, even at this early point. Maybe this is one of those comedies that simply needs to grow into its premise to truly shine, because as it is it's kind of annoying and repetitive.

ART:

The big thing that Umaru-Chan has to offer visually is chibis, which is weirdly nostalgic for an older person like me. Sankakuhead visualizes Umaru's transformation by turning her into a squishy little chibi person in Umaru-chan mode, and it's the one bit of genius about this manga. It's not just good visual shorthand for Umaru's personality transformation, it gives the artist full reign to make her this rubbery, goofy little gremlin. If anything, the rest of his art could use a dose of similar inspiration as the rest of the cast, the backgrounds, and general composition are simply OK.

RATING:

Himouto! Umaru-Chan may not be to everyone's taste, but if you're down with Umaru's brand of brattiness then you'll likely enjoy this. As for me, maybe I'll give it another chance another 2 or 3 volumes to see if it ever balances its comedy formula out.

This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is complete in Japan with 12 volumes available. 3 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

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Comedy manga is a hard thing to pull off, and deadpan comedy even more so. So leave it to a seinen story of a yakuza thug and his unwittingly adopted psychic daughter to get it right.

HINAMATSURI, by Masao Ohtake. First published in 2010 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Yoshifumi Nitta is an up-and-coming Yazkua whose decadent life is turned upside down by a strange metal egg that appears in his apartment, which in turn contains a strange young girl named Hina. Hina has incredible telekinetic powers, but she also has expensive taste in food and her powers creates as many problems for Nitta as it does solve them. Together the two will have to find a way to forge something like a family despite neither of them quite knowing how that works.

STORY:

Deadpan comedy is a tricky thing. It takes a certain degree of farce to make it effective, but it's a formula that's not easy to get right. Play things too serious and the story becomes inert and unfunny; play things too broad and the deadpan stops being funny and just becomes bizarre. Hinamatsuri manages to strike this balance while scoring some legitimate feels.

It helps that Nitta and Hina themselves are fun characters. He may still be a criminal who enjoys some of the finer things (to say nothing of the parties) it can bring, but in his attempts to care for Hina he inadvertently demonstrates a more caring and egalitarian side to himself. As for Hina, we get only hints of her past (such as her skepticism towards adults asking things of her and her constant hunger) and her literal-mindedness , but her detachment allows her to defuse some situations and her powers allow her to help her guardian and keep Nitta's selfishness in line. Neither of them has any idea of what a normal guardian/child situation is like, but they manage in their own fashion and in its own weird way becomes the heart of the story.

Yet there is also room for good absurdity, even with the Yazuka angle. You have hostage situations at the school that become impromptu therapy sessions, a relaxing fishing trip with the boss that becomes chaotic when Hina's powers accidentally start a slow leak, and a gang war that starts when Hina's powers go off by accident. The more promising front for comedy, though, is through Hina's slowly growing group of school friends. The best part of the book is what happens when Hina's new friend Hitomi tries to help Hina figure out what Nitta's doing at night, only to end up getting roped in bartending for a drunk businessman and everyone - Hina, Nitta, the drunk, the actual bartender, and her - end up tagging along to a trip to the hostess club. It's a scenario that manages to snowball into ridiculousness while throwing in a few swerves for variety. It's moments like that this that make Hinamatsuri not only funny, but memorable.

ART:

Ohtaka's artstyle is pretty average for what you normally see in seinen. The guys are squarish and somewhat beady-eyed, while the girls (and young women) are wide-eyed and cute. The world around them is well-drawn (or at least well-rotoscoped), but is otherwise a fairly ordinary look at Tokyo. Even the composition is fairly conservative, lacking in a lot of the broad takes or stretches of long, awkward silence that tend to come with most comedy manga. This approach actually works with this story's style of comedy though, because it just gives further grounding to the strangeness and absurdity going on. It's just as deadpan as Hina herself, and that makes it funnier.

RATING:

Hinamatsuri actually managed to get some chuckles out of me by coming up with an original premise, getting silly with it in a very low-key way, and underselling it just enough to make it funny. It's a style of comedy that works well in manga and it's one well worth seeking out, even if you didn't watch the anime.

This series is published by One Peace Books. This series is ongoing in Japan with 14 volumes available. 1 volume has been published and is currently in print.

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